The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) is planning to raise about ₹50,000 crore via bonds in FY17 to finance, among other things, irrigation projects, rural roads and rural bridges, according to Chairman Harsh Kumar Bhanwala.

In FY16, the financial institution had raised ₹31,300 crore via bonds and commercial papers. This includes ₹5,000 crore mopped up by issuing tax-free bonds.

Outlining Nabard’s agenda for 2016-17, Bhanwala said the long-term irrigation fund, which will be created with a corpus of ₹20,000 crore, will be operationalised soon.

Twenty-three irrigation projects in nine States — Gujarat, Jharkhand, Odisha, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka — which together have irrigation potential of 18.62 lakh hectares will be completed with resources from the fund.

Profit up 13%

Meanwhile, Nabard has reported a 13 per cent increase in net profit at ₹2,501 crore in FY16, against ₹2,403 crore in FY15.

The balance sheet of the financial institution, whose mandate is to bring rural development through credit and non-credit initiatives in the fields of agriculture, cottage and village industries, handicrafts and small-scale industries, grew 15 per cent to ₹3,10,382 crore (₹2,85,809 crore in FY15).

Long-term refinance

Given that capital formation is important in agriculture for increasing production and productivity, Nabard has ramped up long-term refinance to lending institutions. The disbursements jumped 53 per cent to ₹48,044 crore, against ₹31,427 crore a year ago.

Disbursements by the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund were up 20 per cent at ₹23,507 crore (₹19,667 crore). Almost 40 per cent of the fund’s disbursements were towards irrigation projects.

Refinance to the non-banking finance company-microfinance institution segment touched ₹3,000 crore, up sharply from the previous year’s ₹330 crore.

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